


The Taste of Apples

by CandyQueenAO3, CatofApocalypse



Series: Vivi's Reverse Good Omens [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (Non sexual - get yer minds outta the gutter!), Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), But wishes he didn't, Come on, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Fanart, First Kiss, He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Crowley (Good Omens), Historical, Hopeful Ending, Humor, Humor is all I'm Good at With Fics, Light Angst, M/M, Mentioned Gabriel (Good Omens), Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Tentacles, Zine: Love and Lust Through the Ages VII (Good Omens), vaguely, you know me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:02:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29401680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CandyQueenAO3/pseuds/CandyQueenAO3, https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatofApocalypse/pseuds/CatofApocalypse
Summary: Crowley could see that the other was all but begging him to acknowledge what had just occurred between them; to finally give life and voice to this thing that had been growing between them since 3,004 B.C.Crowley, as always, chose to disappoint him.*~*~*~*~*A fic written for "Love and Lust VII", featuring Reverse Crowley and Aziraphale and stunning digital art courtesy of the ever-talented CatofApocalypse!
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Vivi's Reverse Good Omens [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1525982
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20
Collections: Love and Lust Through the Ages Volume II





	The Taste of Apples

Crowley couldn’t help but wonder…

_Why was it always apples?_

From where he sat, perched on the highest boughs of a tree bearing those same fruits, it all seemed very Ineffable.

Boy did he _hate_ that word.

He reached into his doublet and produced a gleaming gold pocket watch on a chain to check the time.

_Good. I’m early._

His orders from Gabriel had been simple. He was to remain concealed in the branches of an apple tree (coordinates given) and, when a young man named Isaac Newton sat beneath it at approximately 10:12a.m., Crowley needed to drop a single apple atop his head. He’d been given no reason for this assignment other than a falsely jovial pat on the back and a cryptic, “Because you’re _so_ good with apples…”

With plenty of time to spare before the boy’s arrival, Crowley leaned back a little to turn his face towards the sun.

All around him the orchard was still, apart from the gentle autumn wind shifting the leaves. The sussuring of the foliage reminded Crowley of the restless ocean waves, which in turn reminded him of-

“Crowley! Aren’t you a sight for cephalopodian eyes!”

The angel closed his own eyes, counted to three, then opened them again to greet his visitor.

Asra Feyde, Demon of Hell, Lord Draken, Hands of Leviathan, the Kraken, and general pain-in-the-arse, hovered in the air beside him.

Well, not “hovered” per-say, so much as “stood atop two sepia-colored, semi-translucent tentacles that supported his weight”.

“What the deuce are _you_ doing here?” Crowley asked. “Don’t you have some ships to plunder or seaside towns to raze to the ground?”

“My last assignment went _exceedingly_ well, so I have a bit of freetime. Thought I’d pop in and see how my favorite serpent is doing,” Feyde replied casually.

His eyes, as blue and deep as the sea watched Crowley expectantly. The angel gave a put-out groan then scooted further from the trunk so Feyde could sit beside him.

Feyde shimmied his shoulders, pleased, and deposited himself atop the branch between Crowley and the tree’s trunk. He gave his tentacles an appreciative pat, before they sank back down beneath the earth with hardly a sound.

“So tell me, why’s an _angel of the Lord_ sitting in a tree looking like someone kicked his puppy?” he pried, nudging the being beside him with his shoulder.

Crowley rested his elbow on his knee and propped his chin up with his hand. “I’ve no _fucking_ clue! I’m just supposed to sit here, wait for some bloke named ‘Isaac’ to come by, and then drop an apple on him!”

As the angel began his tirade about his _ridiculous_ assignment, Feyde found himself steepling his fingers in front of his mouth, brow creasing at the middle.

_Apple…_

Why did that _one_ word tug at the back of his mind so?

It felt like he was doing the mental equivalent of swimming upwards through dark waters…

“..de…”

Like there was light filtering down from _just_ above the surface…

“...eyde!”

Like, if he could _just_ breach the surface, he could get air, he could get-

“Feyde!”

Asra shook his head as he came back to himself. “S-so sorry, songbird. I was a bit distracted,” he apologized. “Were you saying something?”

With a groan and annoyed roll of his eyes, Crowley seized Feyde’s chin in one hand to turn his head in the direction of where he pointed at a figure moving through the trees. “I _said,_ ‘Here he comes! You need to _leave.’”_

Feyde pulled away, sputtering. “Wha- _leave?!_ I just _got here!”_ he protested.

Crowley growled and started pushing on Feyde’s shoulders, trying to physically _shove_ him out of the tree. “I don’t _care!”_ the angel said agitatedly. “You’re only going to distract me!”

Asra’s face fell and his sea-dark eyes widened in unconcealed hurt. He ran a hand through his messy, sandy curls (he always seemed to be shedding sand _everywhere!)_ , his eyes looking at everything _but_ the angel beside him. “I… alright then. I suppose I’ll see you when I see you,” Feyde mumbled, making a move to climb out of the three. 

At the sight of him turning away, something in Crowley’s chest tightened until he finally let out a small sigh. “Ah, fuck it. Come back, demon.”

Feyde was beside him in an instant, all traces of sadness gone almost instantly. “Thank you, dear!” he chirped, swinging his feet where they dangled in the open air. Crowley mentally thanked Her that Feyde was no longer frowning, and continued watching Isaac approach.

Once the young man sat down between the roots of the tree directly below Crowley, and without taking his eyes off him, the angel scrambled to pick up the apple he’d _just_ been holding not ten minutes hence.

_Where the bloody Hell is it?! I_ **_just_ ** _had the damned thing-_

CRUNCH!

Crowley’s entire body went stiff. He turned his head agonizingly slowly. Beside him, as brazen as you please, Feyde was munching happily away on the very same apple Crowley was supposed to drop.

“What, pray tell…” he began, sucking in a slow breath. “...are you doing?”

Feyde blinked once. Then swallowed. “Er… having a nibble?” he replied nervously, sensing that he may have misstepped somewhere.

He cleared his throat awkwardly, and Crowley smiled at him. It wasn’t a kind smile, however. This was a manic smile; the kind one gives right before they drive a knife into your belly.

For a _split second,_ Feyde expected to be painfully discorporated. To his relief, Crowley simply closed his eyes and proceeded to count to ten under his breath. When they snapped back open, they were no longer glinting with poorly-concealed fury, though the dark promise of an angelic smiting was still swirling in their depths. Crowley began pawing at the tree branches over his head to find an apple to replace the one his - Rival? Friend? Enemy? - had so stupidly eaten.

Alas, the boughs above were practically barren, with the shiny red fruits dangling tantalizingly out of reach. Beside him, Feyde continued munching happily away, oblivious to the angel’s turmoil. Right as Crowley was about to give up and throw _Asra_ out of the tree and onto Isaac’s head, he spotted one dangling _just_ behind the demon. If Crowley were to reach past his shoulder, he’d be able to pluck it.

Crowley scooted closer to Feyde, his eyes trained on his prize. The blond warily watched his approach.

“Er, dear? What are you doing?” he asked, holding his half-eaten treat away from his body, like he expected Crowley to snatch it back.

Crowley inched forward a bit more, pointing over Feyde’s shoulder. “Scoot back a little,” he ordered. “I need to grab that apple.”

The demon’s face twisted into his best pout. He brought his fruit close to his chest. “No!” he huffed. “You said I could have it.”

“Not _that_ one!” Crowley snapped, practically looming over Feyde as he approached. “The one right _behind_ you!”

Crowley was practically within headbutting distance, forcing his tree-sitting companion to move backwards until his back was pressed against the tree’s trunk. “My apologies,” the demon said, eyeing the apple in question contritely. “Go ahead, then.”

Crowley pushed himself up onto his knees, balancing precariously on the branch he shared with Feyde. While it _would_ have been prudent to use a miracle to pluck the apple, the _last_ thing he wanted was for it to show up on his Miracle Expense Report and risk a lecture from Gabriel. With that in mind, he stretched out his narrow fingers and reached for the apple.

Closer.

Just a _bit_ closer…

Right as his fingertips brushed the fruit’s skin, one of his knees slipped out from under him and he pitched forward. Feyde lurched up to catch him, but Crowley’s weight bore them both against the trunk. The demon only had enough time to let out a pained cry as his head smacked against the tree, before Crowley’s face smashed into his, their open mouths pressed messily together.

Feyde instinctively tried to pull away, but was met with the unyielding resistance of the tree behind him. When he lifted his hands to push Crowley off of him, his wrists were caught and pressed together in a somewhat blasphemous facsimile of a prayer. In front of him, Crowley’s eyes were shut tight, as if in agony, but he’d made no move to stop this… _whatever_ they were doing.

When Crowley tilted his head to better adjust the angle of their - let’s call it what it was, a kiss - Feyde finally allowed his own eyes to slip shut too. Neither of them noticed when a half-eaten apple core tumbled from slack fingers to land in the lap of the oblivious human below them. 

The angel’s lips were soft, cool and glossy compared to Feyde’s own dry and slightly salt-cracked ones. He practically melted into it, as boneless as his oceanic aspect, and that seemed to spur Crowley on. The angel released his hold on Feyde’s wrists and lifted his hands up to tangle his fingers in dusty blond hair. He was rewarded with the feel of Feyde’s hands clutching at the front of his shirt as though to keep him from running away.

Running away, however, was the _farthest_ thing from Crowley’s mind. That realization was shocking, even to him, but then Feyde parted their lips to slip his tongue into Crowley’s mouth and every other semi-coherent thought fled.

Crowley had expected Feyde to taste like salt, cheap grog, or - God forbid - raw fish.

Instead, the demon didn’t really taste of anything beyond perhaps the faintest tingle of high-quality rum and the tart tang of apples. Crowley scooted forward, practically pressing themselves chest-to-chest and tightened his grip on Feyde’s curls, causing the demon to let out a moan that had Crowley’s face blooming crimson.

Somewhere, in the smallest corner of his mind that _wasn’t_ being overwhelmed by a cacophony of _MOREMOREMORE_ \- Crowley realized that he _probably_ shouldn’t be doing this. Feyde was not only an obnoxious pain in the arse, but a _demon_ to boot! He’d plundered countless ships, tempted innumerable souls into damnation, and Crowley was almost 100% certain Feyde had been directly responsible for the sinking of Atlantis.

Still, despite this, Crowley could not deny that there had certainly been a physical attraction to the demon almost from their first interaction. In the secret spaces of his heart that he refused to acknowledge in the light of day, Crowley had oftentimes wondered what it would feel like to do just this; to pin Feyde against the nearest vertical surface and kiss him silly, to run his fingers through curls the colour of sand, to lick the seaspray off his lips. 

He knew it was greedy of him - _wrong_ \- to take what he wanted like this. Crowley was a being of _Heaven!_ He should be advocating for open communication, for honesty, for-

For not kissing a demon.

Even as he seized control of the kiss to further entangle their tongues together, Crowley felt the guilt of what he was doing come down _hard_ around his shoulders. It was _his_ fault that Feyde was a demon in the first place. If Crowley hadn’t distracted Asra - Aziraphale, then - from his duty guarding the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, neither of them would _be_ in this predicament.

If the other Archangels found out about Crowley’s _blatant_ affection for the opposition, they would surely bring down the wrath of Heaven itself. While Crowley himself wasn’t all that concerned with Falling, his colleagues would no doubt have Feyde boiled alive in Holy Water for _daring_ to “corrupt” one of their own.

It was _that_ thought, the mental picture of Asra ending up as little more than a black stain on the pristine floors of Heaven, that had Crowley wrenching his mouth away with a strangled gasp.

“I… I’m sorry- I can’t-”

Feyde blinked his uncanny eyes in confusion as Crowley scrambled backwards, already preparing to climb down out of the tree now that Isaac had moved on to somewhere else. The demon held out a hand as if to stop him.

“Crowley, wait! Where are you-?”

Crowley could feel his superfluous breath whistling out between his clenched teeth. This was bad! This was really, _really_ bad! He’d just spent the last however-many-minutes losing himself in a desperate snog with a demon! Had Heaven seen? Were they already mobilizing to punish them both? What had he _done?!_

Feyde, always a bit more empathetic than he ever really let on, gently took Crowley’s trembling hands in his. “It’s alright, songbird, it’s alright…”

“I… I have to go!”

Crowley yanked his hands away, leaving Feyde bereft. The angel hopped off the branch and alighted on the ground below. He fully intended to miracle himself away, but was stopped with a plaintive cry of, “Wait!”

Against every instinct commanding him to flee, against every rationale dictating that he not look back, Crowley stilled. He craned his neck back to look up into the apple tree, where Feyde was leaning over the branch to gaze down at him.

“You’re alright, Crowley, nobody saw,” the demon soothed. “But… if you want… we can just pretend that never happened.”

Crowley could see that the other was all but begging him to acknowledge what had just occurred between them; to finally give life and voice to this thing that had been growing between them since 3,004 B.C.

Crowley, as always, chose to disappoint him.

“What kiss?” he asked with a shrug of forced nonchalance.

Feyde’s face fell, not bothering to hide the naked hurt that flashed across his features. For a split second, Crowley almost took back what he said. Then, as quickly as it came, the pain on the demon’s face was gone. Feyde gave him another one of his characteristically cocky grins.

“I can see that your assignment went well,” he hummed. “How about we go get some lunch to celebrate?”

“‘Celebrate’?” Crowley asked, cocking an eyebrow in disbelief.

One of Feyde’s tentacles materialized under his feet, carefully carrying him back down to the ground.

“Why of course. It’s always been a rule amongst demons to acknowledge a worthy foe and the victories they’ve achieved. To do otherwise would be _most_ dishonorable,” he said smartly.

He wiggled his brows, a temptation to continue spending more time together under the guise of two nemeses recognizing the others’ prowess in their respective fields. “And, after all, you wouldn’t want to be out-classed by a _demon,_ would you?”

Crowley blinked slowly, the words sinking in. Then he shook his head and let out a huff of laughter that was both annoyed _and_ fond.

Their entire relationship summed up in two words, really.

“You make an _excellent_ point,” he admitted as his once-terrified heart rate slowed to a manageable pace. “It would be _very_ shameful if I didn’t adhere to tradition. Heaven’s all about that tosh, anywho.”

Feyde smiled and offered his arm, thought better of it, then shoved his hands into his pockets. 

“Come on, songbird. I know a pub right outside Grantham that serves a _fantastic_ ale. Just the thing to toast to another job well done,” he jerked his head in a seemingly random direction. “Shall we walk? It really _is_ quite a lovely day.”

“Sounds good, demon,” Crowley said and, as he would inevitably do again one day, followed Feyde out of the garden.

**Author's Note:**

> You can see more of my writing on my AO3 profile and more of Vivi's work/more about Feyde and Jo (she's also open for commissions btw!) at her Tumblr: vivi-theakuneko.tumblr.com! Expect more collabs from us in the future, and check our her blog (and mine: candyqueenblog.tumblr.com) for more info regarding future projects!


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